Toespraak Hoge Vertegenwoordiger Buitenlands en Veiligheidsbeleid Catherine Ashton over de Europese Diplomatieke Dienst (en)

Mr President,

Honourable Members,

I rise briefly to first and foremost thank the rapporteurs - Mrs. Grässle, Mr. Rapkay and Mr. Gualtieri - very much indeed for the tremendous amount of work that they and many members of this house have done in getting us to the point we are at this morning. I know that this has been at time's tough negotiations, and you have been tough negotiators.

I believe that the outcome that we have before us is a good one and genuinely reflects the Lisbon Treaty in implementation, but the Parliament playing a substantive and important role for the future.

This has been a joint and collaborative exercise and I am extraordinary grateful to all of you for the work that is going on.

Most importantly I do believe we have set the foundations for the service in a way that we will engage the Parliament properly in the future, and I have already made my commitments to the transparency and approach that I wish to take in working with the Parliament.

I have also made it clear that this is a service that we are creating that must reflect the breath and depth of European Union.

It is a service that I wish every member of this house, every member state and every member of the Commission to be really proud of, and to see Europe reflected in the staff that we have, in the Ambassadors that we appoint, in the people of the service. You will have many opportunities to ensure this commitment is brought to bear, especially with the review in 2013.

I know the members have been concerned to ensure that we have proper training facilities and capacity. We do have the legal base for this, and I want to reassure this house that we will make sure that those who come from different traditions, from different sources will be brought together to create a truly European service that again will reflect all that has been said in the process of building up to this moment.

I want to say thank you particularly to Mrs. Lichtenberger and Mr. Saryusz-Wolski for the work they have done around training.

I know that there is much more we need to discuss and I look forward to doing so with you and with other over the coming weeks and months, but you have my full commitment to ensure that training is part of how we approach the building of the service.

I also do so in the context of the economic backdrop and climate in which the service is coming in to being and you have a full commitment from me that there will a be cost-effective service.

Finally, Mr President, this enables us to fulfil the aspiration we have and our ambitions in the world.

Every citizen of the European Union is touched by what we do on foreign policy, and trade and development, in counter-terrorism, and this is above all a service which I believe is for them and I stand before the representatives of the citizens of Europe to make my commitment to see this service fulfil your ambitions.

Thank you.